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Planning Tips for a Late-Season IRONMAN

If your priority IRONMAN is still a ways away, here's how to plan smart for the time in between.

by AJ Johnson

Late season races like IRONMAN Arizona and IRONMAN Cozumel present their own unique challenges, both physically and mentally. If you are already registered or planning to race one of these races, you need to balance your desire to train for the big day with the understanding of how far off in the future the event really is. Burnout is a very real concern here, so setting short-term goals now and working on the finer details in the winter will have you ready to train when the time comes.

There are two ways to approach a season with a late IRONMAN race on the docket. The first is to start your season later, say in May or June. By doing this, you keep your season to five months. Option two is splitting your season into two parts. The first part would be a season focused on a priority IRONMAN 70.3 race in June or early July. Then you would take a short break of a week to 10 days to recover, and begin your focused IRONMAN build in mid to late July. This would give you three solid months to turn your 70.3 fitness into IRONMAN fitness.

Whatever you choose, one of the most important things you can do now is put the race out of your mind. Certainly you want to think of the weaknesses you need to work on and plan out the C and B priority races that you’ll schedule in the meantime, but don’t focus on the big day. Fixating on an event 10 or 11 months away will take a mental toll and, by June, you’ll already be ready for the race to be over. Instead, think about the small steps you can take now that will help you be able to put in the quality miles when the weather warms up. Now is the "stay active" period: This means having fun and exercising with a loose structure. Get outside for a snowshoe or a ski. Your main concern is to keep active and prevent those holiday pounds from creeping up.

May/June start

If you decide to proceed with option one and wait until May or June to begin your season, you'll be training on a spectrum from base to race-pace efforts. As you progress through the season you focus more on one area than the others, but you never focus solely on one area.

In this approach, May, June, and July will be devoted to base training. This would mean the majority of your work is done in an aerobic fashion, though you still want to to do some efforts at your lactate threshold. August and September should be focused on more race-pace efforts to add upper aerobic capacity and to simulate race day demands. It's also the best time to dial in your race day nutrition needs.

Split season approach

If you go for the second option and aim to split your season, schedule an A priority IRONMAN 70.3 for June or July. This means your training will start in February or March. Do your aerobic work but also include some threshold intervals. April and May will bring more intensity as you build towards your priority 70.3 event. Don’t worry about getting in the longer rides and runs for the 140.6 distance—by consistently doing three to four-hour rides and 90-minute to two-hour runs, you will be building endurance that you can enhance in August and September. After your A race, take a week or 10 days off, or do light workouts. Then in July, August and September you can take the upper aerobic capacity you have and easily stretch that to four to six hour rides and three-hour runs.

Training through the winter

Winter is a good time to start strength training, which will decrease your risk of injury when training starts. Hit the gym or sign up for a Pilates or yoga class to strengthen your core and become more flexible. (This article on TrainingPeaks will get you started on an off-season strength training protocol.) By focusing on something that moves you towards your goal without having to focus 100 percent on the goal itself, you save your mental energy for the big blocks of training.

First-time IRONMAN athletes may be ready to start the training and begin working on their base fitness. The winter is a tough time for long sessions, so avoid this common pitfall. In addition to focusing on any one of the aspects mentioned above, you’ll of course be doing swim, bike and run workouts. Keep these short—your longest ride does not need to be longer than two hours and your runs should be no longer than an hour. The goal during this period is simply to prepare your body for the training to come, not to be fit in June.

Spend your swim, bike, run time focusing on the aspects of triathlon that often get lost once you start putting in your heavy training weeks. Practice developing the good form that will lead to efficiency in training and your race. Work on smoothing out your pedal stroke while on your trainer rides, or use rollers. Use the treadmill to improve your run form. Work on lowering your stroke count in the water and consider hiring a swim coach to focus solely on your form.

If you do want to do some longer base sessions, try to do so in a winter specific fashion. This could mean snowshoeing or nordic skiing. These sessions should be about having fun and enjoying the season, not hitting a specific heart rate. The training you will "need" to do is still a ways away, this is the training you should "want" to do. Starting your real training too early is a pitfall that can affect athletes of any level, so if you’re going to err, err on the side of more fun and less structure during the winter months.

For those that have raced IRONMAN before, you know the mental demands and hopefully are less likely to start training too early. Look back at your previous races to see if you can determine your limiter, and focus on that for the winter.

B and C races

Early season races are great for giving yourself a goal to look towards or to use as an early season benchmark test. Think about running a 10k or half marathon in February or March if you want to get a good baseline of your run fitness. For either strategy, these races will give you a focus for training without fixating on the far-off IRONMAN.

A late-season IRONMAN also gives you more opportunities for B and C priority events. Start with a C priority sprint or Olympic race, then a 70.3 or two before the big day. Progressions like this allow for a continual evaluation of your fitness and training needs.

Finally, avoid the lure of going on long rides with your friends who are racing an IRONMAN in the early or mid season. It will sound like fun, and your training friends think they are doing you a favor, but if you start long rides in June you’ll pay for it. You will still need to do your long rides, and when your friends are in recovery mode you’ll be in the position of forcing yourself out the door. Avoid burnout by telling your friends thanks but your time to do the focused training will come later.

The late season can be a great time to race an IRONMAN provided you take the necessary precautions now. You’re motivated to get moving, but do so with caution and the understanding that you have a long way to go. By taking smaller steps that move you toward the goal you’ll reach your destination without burning out.

AJ Johnson is a technical analyst for TrainingPeaks as well as a triathlon coach for D3 Multisport. You can follow him on Twitter @tricoachaj. Find a training plan, get matched with a triathlon coach, or just get a free account to monitor your progress: Get Started.